MITT ROMNEY: “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?”

DEBATE MODERATOR JOHN KING: Including disaster relief, though?”

ROMNEY: We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.

More prosaically, though the Romney campaign was understandably circumspect over the weekend about his spending plans the fact is that his overall budget requires sharp cuts in everything. The central issue is that Romney wants to cap government spending at 20 percent of GDP while boosting military spending to 4 percent of GDP and leaving Social Security harmless. That means a 34 percent across-the-board cut in other programs according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Unless, that is, Medicare is also exempted from the cuts in which case you’d need a 53 percent cut. …

If a storm damages basic physical infrastructure (power lines, bridges) and imperils human life it would be the height of penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking to suppose that the afflicted area should wait months or years to repair the damage. Ultimately, anyplace is going to go back to robust wealth creation faster if basic stuff gets fixed up faster. But that requires financing by an entity capable of rapidly financing expensive projects—i.e., the federal government. Left to its own devices a storm-ravaged Delaware or Louisiana is going to be squeezed between balanced budget rules and falling sales tax receipts and be forced into an increasing state of dilapidation.

How about a storm-ravaged Florida? According to current polls, slightly more than half of Florida voters want their state to take over disaster relief, at least until arrangements can be made for the private sector to take it over.

And, about that question Romney asked: What should we KEEP? Well, in addition to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and defense spending for private contractors, what DOES Romney think we should keep?

We cannot – we cannot afford to do things like disaster relief without jeopardizing the future of our kids. We CAN, though, afford to give massive additional tax cuts to the wealthy, and huge additional contracts to Republican defense contractors, without jeopardizing the future of our kids. Right?

What’s truly unconscionable is that it’s taking Hurricane Sandy to educate the public about the plans Romney and Ryan have stated so clearly. I’ve been utterly unable to understand why the Obama campaign hasn’t been running video clips of Romney’s primary-campaign statements as the foundation of their ads. I’ve thought all along that this is all Obama would need to do in order to win. I think Sandy will prove me right.

And, here’s a shout-out to New York Time columnist Bill Keller for exposing for the absurd myth that it is the punditry’s “in” refrain that we don’t know what either of the two candidates would use the office to do in the next four years, because, well, neither has specified sufficiently. As Keller says, actually both have specified sufficiently.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, for once—just once, for heaven’s sake!—someone, like Obama, actually asked how, exactly, the states would manage to be cheaper and more efficient at … whatever it is at the moment that Romney (or whoever) is saying would be handled more cheaply and efficiently by the states? FEMA, Medicaid … anything?

They’ve gotten away with making this asinine claim, for decades now. No one ever actually demands specifics. Which, of course, is WHY they’ve gotten away with it for so long.

Anonymous

October 29, 2012 6:38 pm

There is already 50 little FEMA’s because FEMA is already run by the states.

Hence, there is nothing to give back. Basically, the states would lose funding and private, globalist firms would take over picking and choosing winners and losers. A pure internationalist scam.

Romney is lying.

Anna Lee

October 29, 2012 6:51 pm

Since states that tend to support the 50 little everythings tend to receive more in federal funds than they pay in federal taxes, I keep wondering what it is that is so great that they would desire such a sacrifice. What did they lose by a more federalized system that they would bring back? Slavery?

That’s actually true largely of Medicaid, too, Anonymous. There are federal standards that the states must comply with, but the standards are flexible enough that the availability and coverage of Medicaid, I believe, varies pretty widely from state to state.

I think it would be sort of funny, in a poetic-justice sort of way, Ann Lee, if Romney is elected and keeps his promise to leave funding of disaster relief up to the states. Can’t wait until the next mega-hurricane hits the Gulf coast, after this handing-over takes place.

Aww, come on. FEMA will be pretty useless for storms after the national hurricane center and the rest of NOAA are gutted.

Jeff Fisher

October 29, 2012 7:59 pm

Once I came across some budgetary stats about… oh building codes or something we do state by state. Comparing how much various countries spend on the beauracracy for it. The US was way higher than other wealthy countries. The explanation was that the US had around 50 such regulatory bodies, while most countries had around 1.

Sounded like all the duplication is a pretty significant source of government inefficiency in the US.

JackD

October 29, 2012 8:48 pm

Notice how you’re not seeing any reporting of Romney’s comments in the main stream press; only on liberal political sites?

Min

October 29, 2012 9:39 pm

It helps in such cases to look at the real economy. Suppose that there was no money. In case of a disaster, can you imagine the head of the nation coming out and saying, we cannot give relief without burdening our children and their children? That would obviously be ridiculous.

Now, in our economy we may have set things up so that the way in which we pay for that relief means that some people in the future will pay money to other people in the future, and maybe that’s a little crazy. But then maybe we should change the way we have things set up. It is not an argument against providing relief.

dilbert dogbert

October 29, 2012 11:19 pm

Anyone want to go back in history and find all those fed gov supported programs that jeopardized our future? Remember we were kids then as where our parents, grand parents and great grandparents.wrongney is such a weird guy. Is it the underwear?

OK, anonymous, I’m anxious to see a detailed explanation of how people can do their own disaster relief.

I bet you can not do it.

amateur socialist

October 30, 2012 11:56 am

Yes please do share how 5 million NYC commuters might have handled the disaster relief they need to replace say… The Subway System.

amateur socialist

October 30, 2012 11:57 am

Once we quit laughing at your scheme for that one you can start in on everything else needed to protect NYC’s Jahb Creators!!!

coberly

October 30, 2012 8:23 pm

well, i think

Min has it about right.

Min

October 30, 2012 9:15 pm

What Romney actually meant:

ROMNEY: We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future foryour kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to your kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off to my kids. It makes no sense at all.

coberly

October 31, 2012 3:23 am

Min

yes, i get your (second) point. But it is also worth noting that Romney is either lying or he is a complete financial idiot.

I vote for lying. He does not seem to think we can just pay for what we are buying instead of borrowing for it. Or we could buy a few less horses and bayonets to save enough to pay for disaster relief, Or even (gasp) let the workers pay for their own Social Security instead of forcing them to give their money to people like him and hope they can get it back when they need to retire.